On the field, the Void Rift’s offensive was collapsing across the line.

Chaos Spawn no longer surged like a tide without end.

They were cut by allied fire into isolated islands of flesh.

They whipped grotesque tentacle weapons, bodies warping and phasing like smoke.

They tried to use invisibility to break out.

But stripped of numbers and penned around the World Tree, they had nowhere to run.

They were culled in flocks, batch by batch.

Under Elf and Nacha heavy fire, they were ants crushed by a strike from a higher plane.

Their strongest, the Chaos Beast—the tyrant that ravaged worlds—fared little better.

To everyone watching, the Follower of Pleasure stabbed the Chaos Beast.

Then he dropped Adelaide’s prison shield and routed void energy back to it.

This took only a heartbeat.

The allied lines couldn’t finish it in that breath.

With energy restored, its mountain-like trunk moved again.

Yet the sky held no more wicked blood moon, and the Chaos Beast didn’t rekindle its will.

Once it could move, its first act was simple.

Like the other Chaos Spawn, it turned and ran, ignoring the backstabber hitching a ride.

It had no mind for revenge; it let him hide inside and sprinted for the Rift.

Behind it, color-slick attacks kept biting.

Spells of the First Generation, allied heavy guns, an overcharged beam from the Moonforged Miracle.

Life threw everything it had at its hide.

Attacks that once couldn’t pierce its Deconstruction Field now struck its true flesh.

The stronger blows even peeled a layer from its “invincible” body.

It was this way because the Rift’s influence was fading.

The World Tree’s crystal boughs sang with the Sealing Array overhead.

Queen Dreamlan’s power rang through the realm.

Green sealing threads mended like stitches, closing the jagged wound in the sky bit by bit.

The repair wouldn’t be stopped.

If it couldn’t reach the Rift before closure, only annihilation awaited.

It had no choice but to lean on its Chaos regeneration and run under fire.

Humiliated, flayed by “primitive ants” in its eyes, it still could push its core back in time.

But it hadn’t counted the deadliest strike still to come.

Lightning outran it and carved open the air by its flank.

White so bright it defied words erupted.

The flash-burst blew out that side of its body.

Thousands of eyes embedded in its flesh couldn’t bear the light.

They popped and sprayed gray-white fluid; hemispheres sagged like punctured gourds.

The Chaos Beast shrieked; insect legs stuttered mid-gallop.

Before it could find balance, a black-red bud bloomed afar.

Leaves pulsed to quickening spell-rhythm until the petals opened.

Pure black replaced the sea of lightning.

When it cleared, a visible chunk of the mountain-body was gone.

The cut’s wounds worsened fast, corrosion eating what remained.

The neat two-hit was Mira and Adelaide’s craft.

With Savia Rose suppressing the curse, they rejoined the fray.

This time, both had grown by a full stride.

With Tessmi’s Lament no longer suppressing her, Mira’s resistance training finally showed.

She no longer needed anyone to weaken the Chaos Beast’s shield.

She could cleave its defense apart with an easy stroke.

Adelaide’s attack lacked the blood moon’s world-darkening pomp.

Yet with scarce material and wounds, her damage matched before.

Thanks, in truth, to Matis.

He tried to snare Adelaide in a nightmare and showed her memories of Truth.

He meant to drown her mind under information no life could bear.

Adelaide broke the dream and drew fresh insight from the Truth.

She couldn’t name the sensation.

During casting, each finger felt awake, dancing fluidly.

She skipped redundant figures, and weighted strokes at the array’s core just right.

Her casting ran at peak efficiency.

Thus one shed old shackles, and the other wasted nothing.

Material use rose to near one hundred percent.

Earlier it couldn’t gain ground against them.

Now, facing their growth, the Chaos Beast was forced to scurry.

It kept severing flesh Adelaide had infected, running like a gecko shedding its tail.

A world-ender reduced to wall-lizard tactics—irony, sharp as winter.

It threw away all it could discard to buy what a void proxy shouldn’t crave.

A sliver of life.

At last, with its torso down to a tenth, it reached the breach.

The seal was almost complete.

The sky’s rip was a narrow seam spilling familiar energy.

On the ragged flesh, thousands of arms sprouted and strained toward the mother-port of safety.

If even a nail’s sliver slipped inside, it could transfer back.

It would bide time and rise again; ruined muscles trembled with hope.

But the welcome wasn’t a mother’s embrace.

It was a golden fist.

“You wish!”

A heaven-rattling boom rolled across the field.

The Chaos Beast was punched flying by a figure absurdly small beside it.

“It’s her! She’s back!” Elves and Nacha with sharp eyes shouted.

Only the Lionheart Hero Varie could do that with raw flesh.

And she brought more than herself.

As her punch landed, the World Tree’s crystalline resonance peaked.

The Sealing Array’s thick magic tracks drooped like willow wands.

They sharpened into spears and, guided by the resonance, lanced the Rift from both sides.

The last seam locked; the seal was done.

The Chaos Beast lost its fuel entirely.

It couldn’t even shed a tail now.

Petrified mid-flight, its body began to crumble.

Varie saw it and drove her legs.

Her spinning kick shattered the statue clean.

As the shell broke and the blood-red man inside showed, lightning and a crimson slash arrived together.

Two sword-energies—one light, one dark—moved as one and wove an inescapable net.

A scream ripped the air.

The blood-red man tried to raise a defensive array and take the hit.

But without Chaos power, he couldn’t even casually subdue Mira.

His hard-forged array lasted less than half a breath.

The strike punched through; his body blew apart, barely human.

And still, he didn’t die.

Pink matter showed in the torn torso, the same flesh Firefly used to devour Mira’s blade.

His ruin was worse than Firefly’s, and everyone saw the layer’s true form.

A baby.

A blood-colored baby, birthmarks warped across its back, a miniature of the desert blood-infant.

That infant had nearly swallowed Adelaide and Mira.

It cried again, sharp as glass.

Chaotic mana surged outward from it as the origin.

The shock didn’t fling Adelaide and Mira.

But the fear inside made Adelaide’s wounded temples throb and her knees buckle.

She nearly sank to her knees.

Mira reached to steady her and missed the perfect chase window.

Matis howled, leapt without care for life, and slipped their range for a breath.

Against instinct, he didn’t flee toward emptiness.

He charged straight for the densest ranks behind the allied lines.

Adelaide saw Mira’s face change.

She steadied herself and opened the Time Domain in pursuit.

Her speed was so sharp she couldn’t even sync Crimson Frenzy to keep up.

By the time she reached Mira’s back, Mira stood rooted.

Her hand on the hilt trembled; she refused another step toward Matis.

The reason was simple.

“Don’t come closer, or I’ll kill her,” Matis shouted.

White sailcloth tents dotted the place.

This was the rear of the two tribes’ lines.

Wounded from earlier fights were clustered here for treatment.

Guards were those unfit for the front—Elves and Nacha, even half-grown children.

Chaos came with malice to erase life and meaning.

For the greater cause, civilians not born for war had come to the front.

They gave what they could, taking up rear logistics beneath the storm.

It was aid like fire in snow.

Now their resolve was Matis’s trump card.

“Let go of the old witch, you monster! Let her go!”

A child’s cry cracked from the side.

A blue-haired, cat-eared girl bared her teeth, ready to throw herself at the horror.

Other kids clung to her, stopping a stupid move.

The blood-red creature held a gleaming knife.

And the knife pressed to the throat of the guardian they treasured most.

“Don’t worry, little one. Your ‘old witch’ will be fine, as long as…”

Matis smiled crookedly and turned his gaze to Adelaide and Mira.

“As long as the grown-ups over there don’t do anything stupid.”

Adelaide’s brows knit; Mira bit her lip.

Tendons stood on Mira’s hand around the hilt, like she’d crush steel.

The Nacha hostage saw her and hope flared in terrified eyes.

“Miss… Miss Mira…!”

“Shh.” Matis breathed at her ear, clapped a hand over her mouth, and stroked her chin.

“If I remember right, this ‘Miss Pengpeng’ is your good friend, Mira.”

“You don’t want the friend you finally made to get hurt, do you?”

“You… despicable wretch!” Mira’s eyes blazed.

Pengpeng and her folk had come with the Nacha Tribe to support the front.

They meant to organize logistics and heal, but now she was his hostage.

“Despicable? No, no. It’s just give-and-take.”

“I want to live, and you want your friends to live.”

“We want the same thing, don’t we?”

“Unless you don’t care about these wounded and civilians.”

“In that case—unfortunate, sure—but we all know what happens, don’t we?”

"..."

"Oh, and by the way—don’t try a magic sucker punch. You can feel this veil, right? Any power that pushes in will trip it, and I’ll blow like a glass bomb."

He grinned like a knife hidden in silk. "I’m hurt, sure. Might not take you all with me. But dragging a few wounded women and kids down with me? Easy." Matis flicked a taunting look at the late-arriving Varie. Her blood surged hot, fists tightening like storm-clouds clenching. She stopped, held back the urge to paste his smirking face with a hundred punches, and rooted herself like a stone.

Everyone froze like deer in torchlight—except Adelaide, who stepped toward Matis again, a blade of calm slipping through snow.

"Second time already, elder. You really love the hostage trick." She snorted, amusement bright as a spark in dry grass.

"You used Mira to threaten me. Fine. But now…? You really think I’ll spare you for a few orcs and Elves I’ve never even met? In your eyes, do I look like some saint?"

She leaned on the word "orc" like grinding salt into a wound, eyes cold as winter water. She kept walking, pressure rolling forward like a tide.

Matis still wore a wicked smile, a serpent basking on warm stone, unshaken. "You’re no saint. But you are a good sister…"

His finger slid in like warm wax, bloodless, puncturing Pengpeng’s throat. The boy hacked, oxygen stripped like frost from his cheeks, face turning steel-blue.

"And a good sister doesn’t want her little sister crying, does she?"

Adelaide’s face stayed calm, a pond under moonlight. She didn’t answer. Only ten steps lay between her and the ward Matis had raised, a handful of footprints. For those who dared not move, that short stretch burned like a spit over hellfire.

All eyes fixed on her; in the hush, their heartbeats thudded like drums under ice.

It was a game of breath and nerve, betting on who broke first.

By the look of it, Matis had won.

Adelaide saw Mira’s shoulders tremble, a leaf in a cold wind. She sighed, a small fall of ash, and stopped at the edge of the ward.

The scarlet man threw his head back and laughed, teeth like chips of bone. "That’s right! Clear me a path!" He pointed like a ringmaster counting prizes—at Adelaide, Mira, Varie, the First Generation, and Queen Dreamlan just stepped from the Void Rift. "Don’t even try to tail me. Once I’m safe, maybe I’ll let them go. Hear me?!"

"Oh dear, elder, you still haven’t grasped the board."

Adelaide spread her hands, helpless as a willow shrug in rain. "The match is over. You’re already in check." She shook her head, soft as falling plum petals. "We all know how this ends. Stop thrashing. Like you said—give yourself a proper funeral. That way, when people speak of you, they’ll remember the name ‘Follower of Pleasure,’ not ‘Matis,’ the coward who clung to life."

"Shut up!"

His triumph twisted like a broken mask. He roared, voice rasping like sand through a pipe. "The game isn’t over! I’m a Follower of Pleasure, a knower of ‘Truth’! You think only you know my weakness? No—I know yours. I’ve seen your past and your future, tasted every fear you hide. You can’t checkmate me. You can’t kill me, not you—failed, failed, impossible!"

"Come on then, step in," he shrieked, voice tearing like cloth, fingers tightening. Pengpeng coughed in strangled spasms.

Adelaide stood where she was, smiling like a lantern behind mist. "Such a blunt denial, elder. Kinda hurts."

She shrugged, a small ripple. "But."

"I said I wasn’t walking in. I never said I was the piece delivering check, did I?"

What was she saying?

Pain bloomed in Matis’s chest like a thorned flower.

He took a heartbeat to understand, then stared down in disbelief.

A dark-violet dagger had burst from his sternum, black moonlight made steel.

No. Impossible—

He hadn’t felt any magic approach. Why?

He couldn’t understand the storm inside his ribs. Only a cold, familiar voice rose behind him, a winter blade across the back.

"You told me everyone fears death…"

The dagger twisted slowly, frost-bitter, yet burning like lye. Corrosion crawled from the wound, shackling his limbs—the way hatred and rage harden into iron.

Behind him stood the girl he had stolen everything from. Anta.

She had hidden in his blind angle since the start, wrapped in the Shadow Plane’s domain. That power didn’t interact with other magic. She became a true shadow, a slit of night, lurking inside his ward. When her teacher drew all eyes with barbed words, she glided in behind him like dusk.

The moment the blade sank, the game ended.

"Now you feel it for yourself, demon—fear!"

Her voice was young, not yet ripened, but the hate was old and venom-black. The blade bit into the blood-embryo inside Matis and spun a savage circle. Dark corrosion bled out from his chest, and he dropped the hostage like a burned coal.

It pierced the blood-embryo’s heart, wrecking him and ripping from him the power to drag them all to death with the ward.

Mira, Adelaide, and Varie moved in the same breath, a triad of swift wind. They pulled Pengpeng and every child and wounded out of the domain, leaving Matis standing alone like a dead tree.

He coughed blood. New tissue bubbled at the wound—his blood-slime’s self-healing surged like a swollen tide, trying to knit a broken shore.

But the river had already chosen its course.

He raised his arm. Color had fled his fingertips like dusk draining from leaves. His limb was so thin the battlefield breeze could peel it.

Watching his body turn to dust, he…

laughed again.

He called himself a Follower of Pleasure. Smile was his default mask. But this laugh was different. It was bright, honest sun after long fog.

"Ha… haha. So this… this is fate."

Air whistled through him. Each breath made skin flake away like scorched snow, yet he still laughed. Tears shone like wet glass.

Adelaide watched, a flicker of pity in her eyes.

"This isn’t fate." She turned to Mira, who held Anta and soothed the purple-haired girl like stroking a frightened bird. "It’s delayed revenge. Nothing more."

You chose slaughter; you had to know the debt would come due. She said it like a bell toll. Matis lifted his head, looked at her, and breathed a small, bitter laugh.

"Good. Good… Never thought fate would come true like this."

His mouth eased. He nodded, thoughtful, like tasting rain. "Reality’s unfair, isn’t it, Jiaqi?"

Adelaide heard the name and kept her silence. He talked on, alone, words falling like ash.

"I never set out to be some villain. If not for my father’s lecherous reputation, maybe my midwives wouldn’t have treated me as a demon’s child. Then I wouldn’t have killed them to stay alive, wouldn’t have been cast out, walking this road." He closed his eyes, imagining a gentler sky, and smiled. "If I’d been born to a happy home, with parents who loved me… maybe I’d be remembered as a good man. My gift’s not much worse than yours, after all."

He drifted in that dream, a warm mirage on cold stone. "In the end, I just wanted to live. Is that so wrong? Why would a god design something this cruel for a child, forcing me into this shape?"

How unfair, even after I gave up everything— He stroked the blood-slime struggling to rebirth inside him, his last warmth, and sadness finally crept in like evening light. "Even after giving up all that mattered, I still couldn’t outweigh Her single word."

"Why do you get to finish your revenge and keep traveling, while I have to die here? Why can’t I even drag a few along with me to the underworld road?"

Matis sighed, shaking his head, and lifted his face to Adelaide one last time. Rage, joy, reflection, grief passed across his ruined features like weather. Then his mouth hooked up again, back to that old, biting smile.

"So, for my small and petty revenge—let me tell you something interesting I saw in the ‘Truth’—"

He moved like a lightning-crippled beast, sudden and fierce. A dying body burst with strength and charged for Adelaide and Mira.

Adelaide’s pupils tightened, winter cutting to focus. She triggered Crimson Frenzy. Blood blades bloomed around every possible line of attack like thorns in a hedge.

They didn’t matter.

He wasn’t trying to hurt them.

Crimson Frenzy’s speed faded. Matis halted before Adelaide, his blood-embryo’s head already smashed—damage baked in before she moved.

His sprint was only to close the gap.

In that heartbeat, he wove a transmission array of high-density information, a whisper circle etched in air. He cast it at Mira from the edge of range. She had her guard up, but didn’t expect something that couldn’t hurt by design. She couldn’t react in time and took the encrypted message full on.

Its magic was so faint it evaporated on contact, a mist in sunlight. Only Mira received it.

And it left her blank, mind stunned like a bird hitting glass.

"What did you do?!"

Adelaide saw Mira’s eyes go distant. She grabbed Matis by the collar, yanked him close, and set a blood blade to his throat. He smiled again.

Death wasn’t a threat anymore. It was a simple, uncolored fact.

His torso powdered to grit. His head, spine gone, sagged and dropped, thumping against Adelaide’s shoulder like a dry gourd.

Before his wicked soul faded, he breathed one last sentence into her ear, a winter draft through silk.

"Poor Jiaqi. You’re the same as me… Fate… already decided."

You…

will never, ever become king.